ENGLISH FOR OFFICE SUPPORT STAFF

This course is intended for secretarial and paraprofessional staff who may need to improve essential language skills for both written and oral office communication. Participants will be empowered with the confidence to prepare more effective business letters, fax transmittals, and narrative cover sheets. The following is a sample workshop in the program syllabus:

"All You Ever Wanted to Know About Grammar But Were Afraid to Ask"
1. Sentence Mechanics (Noun phrases, clauses, subject/verb agreement)
2. Ready, Set, Action (Verb tenses)
3. Placement Polish (Adjectives & adverbs, prepositions)
4. Proofreading (Spelling, capitalization, word choice, use of Thesaurus)

"Writer's Block Party"
1. Writing Criteria (The 5 C's: Clear, Correct, Concise, Complete, Considerate)
2. Watch Your Housekeeping! (Relative clauses, misplaced modifiers, dangling participles, use of conjunctions, sentence order)
3. Gerunds and Infinitives
4. Active and Passive Voice
5. Business Writing Formats (letters, fax transmittals, narrative cover sheets)

This course is taught in a lively "game/contest" setting!